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I started this new copper vessel about three weeks ago in class at FIT. I started with a 12 inch square of 20 gauge copper from which I cut a 12 inch diameter circle. Having made a vessel with 18 gauge, I knew I needed to have something slightly thinner raising a larger vessel. I started in my usual way which is to sink a shallow bowl before beginning to raise the shape. These large vessels are really difficult to control. I got a pretty good height on the first half of the first round. Then I had to change angles because I couldn’t continue hammering on metal that was gathering too quickly.

On the second round I planished a band of the first round before the break  and then raised it the rest of the way.

Starting the Third round,  I had decided that the bottom part was about where I wanted it, I planished another time just below half way before I began to raise the pot. Gennady stopped me working on the t-stake and suggested I use a mushroom stake instead for the large diameter, saying I would be more comfortable. We searched the stake closet and I found this one, it was more comfortable and I was able to use it on the following rounds.

Almost there One more round to go.

Last round.

In my studio today, I began to work the shapes into the vessel this afternoon.  I began by dividing the surface.

Some of my divisions were off and I had to draw an equator where I could measure with dividers to make the corrections. I attached a sharpie to my surface gauge.

The drawing behind the vessel is one Colman is working on. He calls it Night Scribe, it is the idea behind this vessel. I intend to chase feathers onto raised ribs in this copper pot.

With the  lines corrected, I made a stencil of a feather silhouette to trace around the pot.

Then I took a dapping punch and hammered the beginning dimples at the bottom of the pot. I did this because I was going to hammer the feathers out from the inside and I needed some reference inside to help me strike in the right places.

Lines were drawn inside the vessel so I could manage the sculpture in stages rising from the bottom.

The sand bag was set on my bench and I used the hook hammer to start pushing the feather shapes out.

After working the feathers up about two thirds of the height I wanted to push the grooves between them deeper from the outside. It became apparent that I couldn’t go too high with this activity, some wrinkles started in two places and I knew that I had to complete the feathers before going any further. I used the ball peen end of the chasing hammer to do this work on the outside.

I finished pushing the feathers out to their tops (this isn’t the end of that). At this point I decided to trim the pot. The uneven edge was going to be a problem to cut if I continued to scallop the top edge. So I marked the rim, trimmed it and brought a preliminary groove up to the rim.

While the pot was resting (I wasn’t willing to put it down), I looked to see if I could make the drawing survive the next annealing.  I thought it would be a good idea to scratch the sharpie lines in with a scribe. While I was doing that, it occurred to me that I could do some chasing at the base to start the feather’s pin end. I chased and I saw that I needed to push that part out more, nothing like drawing all over the surface to bring details into focus. I got out a snarling iron and was able to raise the pinions and raise the ends of the feathers that the hook hammer hadn’t been able to reach. It has to be annealed before I can do much more.

Since I have been making my wine cups, I have had to make a lot of my own tools. The studio snarling irons at FIT, while they have good heads on them, were too long for work on my short cups. Gennady and I made the first one about a year and a half ago, I have made many more since then with different heads for different designs on the cups. I made the  horizontal and vertical liners about 3 weeks ago.

These tools were made of different shaped tool steel that I bought at Metalliferous,  I filed and polished the ends before bending the  steel into the snarling iron shape.  All of the stock was about 12 inches or 30 cm, long.  On some tools I bent the working head up with a neck too long.  It works but I suspect I might be able to get a stronger vibration if the iron has a longer body.  At the base you need a full inch and a half to  two inches for the vise to clamp onto.

Here’s a side view of the collection. The hammer in the photo is the one I use on the irons when I’m working on a cup.

Last week Colman and I were shopping for miniature vise grips at Lowe’s and I found a set of center punches and a set of chisels in their bargain bins. They looked like perfect candidates for repoussè tools.  They were 2 or 3 dollars for each set of three.

I took them to class and Gennady said that they were okay to grind without  relieving  the temper.  In this shot, I have already ground the sharp points off of the center punches and the chisels are  as I bought them.

After grinding the basic shape, I was able to file them down into more usable shapes.  In this photo the round ones have been started with the file and the flat tools are like they were off of the grinding wheel.

The tool on the right show how far I took filing the round shape, the others show grinder marks. After that I polished them with 1200 grit  emery paper.

Here they all are after final polishing, after I use them I will see if I want to reshape them, that can be done on the run.

It’s been a hectic few weeks. I have been working on getting art into the store on Beach Street for the Juried Miniature Show scheduled to open on December 3rd. We are also starting to become a new LLC, ArtHaus NY LLC.
I showed and sold jewelry at the Wearable Art Show which was held on November 6th and am now preparing for a Thanksgiving weekend  and a Christmas show that will take place in about a weeks time.

In the mean time I have finished a few pieces of jewelry and started on the Lion Cup saucer. The first two Lion Cups have been sold to the Jewish Museum in their Celebrations Shop. The first cup was sold to a lady who wants a saucer, so everything is moving faster than it would without a time goal. Robert, who turns wooden bowls for the store made me a pitch box big enough for the saucer, here it is with the prepared disk laid into it. The disk was prepared by annealing and sinking the center  a little to make a depression for the cup. 

The design has been reworked to let the Lions prowl, meeting the bull and chasing the ram. I made stencils of the basic shape to help me get the design onto the border as I designed it.  You’ll see the working drawing in the background of a photo further down in this entry. I still hadn’t completed the drawing as the work began on the  saucer.

Drawing is in place, it is filled in and adjusted. 

Chasing in the motif.

One side of the chased line is put down and I begin to rough push the background away from the figures. 

With the background work hardened I remove the saucer from the pitch bed and clean it with turpentine.

I did the first bit of repoussè on plasticine rather than pitch. This will save me time cleaning pitch off of the front before start the middle portion of the chasing work. It also allows me to check the front as the work progresses. I started by placing slices of plasticine on the saucer and pressing it into the surface.

I rolled the plasticine flat, turned the saucer over and pressed the plasticine onto the binder’s board. The board will allow me to turn the plate as I work depressing the animals and leaves on the back of the saucer.

The plasticine sometimes blackens the copper. It isn’t permanent.

The back of the back and front of the saucer after I finished the repoussè and cleaned the plasticine residue off of it. Now it is ready to be annealed. 

Reset onto the pitch bed, I outlined the figures with a small circle chasing tool and began to texture and press the background for a stronger contrast.

The saucer bends as the background goes down lifting the edges which pops the pitch out of the bed. It loosens the saucer which comes of too, it happened  three times as I worked around the border.

When the saucer popped off of the bed, I took that as an advantage and corrected the saucer distortion with a mallet before replacing it on the bed with a heat gun.

This is one way I corrected the distorted shape of the saucer,  holding the rim on my table edge, turning and striking it with a large mallet.

With the saucer replaced onto the pitch bed and its background work hardened, I began to add detail to the bull and model its surface.  I’ll continue with that process on all of the raised figures in the border.  After that it will be annealed again and I will start on the final design work, evening the background texture and further defining the figures.

It was only yesterday that the NY Times wrote an article about a show in a Columbia University Gallery. “Delight in Design” is a show of silver tableware from India made during the Raj. Didn’t think I was going to go but I decided last night that I would make the effort. It was the last day and it was something I needed to see. The Wallach Gallery opened at 1:00 this afternoon and I made it up to 116th street and found the gallery by about 1:30. I was fortunate to find the curator, Vidya Dehejia was there talking with one of her friends and taking him through the show. Following along, I got a lot of interesting insights about the culture in India at the time of the British occupation. A few other people joined the impromptu tour and had questions of their own which enriched our knowledge of the times and people around the silver in the show. Here’s a photo of Vidya.

A number of people showed up having read the Times article (Last Chance) and all of them were as surprised as I was that we hadn’t heard about it, it’s been open since the middle of September. This is the first piece that greeted us as we entered the galleries. It is made with spectacularly deep repoussè work, on closer examination I saw a number of holes where the metal may have been worked too hard or it may have worn through over the ages, but none of the flaws took away from the drama of the piece. 

What I wanted to examine here is the insides of the vessels, here’s a shot of another slightly smaller bowl with a shot of the inside which shows how deep the repoussè work is.

  Here are a few shots of the gallery and a case or two.

The rocking chair in this case is a wine bottle holder. There’s a circular hole in the seat so that the bottle can rest on the rungs. 

Here are a few details of pieces I like. The first piece is their PR centerpiece in the Kashmir style, it is remarkably sculptural with a pierced base. This double shot was put together from the gallery web site. I took the shots of the accompanying plate, decorated with the same pattern, showing front and back and another shot of the inside of the large bowl.

A bowl decorated with animals representing the days of the week, I’ll have to read the catalog to get more information. 

I like this image of an elephant and Tiger, it’s on a tankard that’s covered with animals surrounded by foliage and flowers.  

 There are many more pieces I liked (especially the little pepper pots) but this is enough for this post, you can see the whole show by clicking on this word

Delight

which will take you to the Wallach Gallery page for this exhibition. There are slide shows that take you through the regional styles of decoration and show almost all the pieces in the galleries.  

There’s also a great catalog available. One of the other visitors said you can find it on Amazon too.  It’s $65 in hard cover.